Meet the New Orleans Saints: Beloved, Colorful Underdogs

By

David Roth

Feb 3, 2010 12:55 pm ET

Associated Press

Drew Brees: the straw that stirs the Hurricane.

It made news earlier this week when the NFL moved to lay legal claim to the phrase “Who Dat” — as in “Who Dat Say Dey Gonna Beat Dem Saints?” — which has served as the rallying cry for New Orleans Saints fans for decades. But while the Journal’s Jennifer Levitz reported that the NFL was quite serious about its Who Dat claim (although it has since backed off), there was something amusing about what was otherwise a crass bit of corporate high-handedness.

After all, during the Saints’ mostly moribund decades as an NFL franchise, the answer to Who Dat’s rhetorical question was, “Whichever team is next on the schedule, and they’ve got a pretty good chance.” Those generations of on-field futility are a distant memory as New Orleans prepares for the first Super Bowl in the Saints’ 43 years of existence. What’s stubbornly unique about the Saints franchise and its fans remains in place, copyright claims be damned.